Bug: Gen 2 Virtual Machines do not boot after moving from 2012 R2 to 2019

Click the link for a workaround.

 

Source: https://american-boffin.com/2019/01/17/virtual-machines-do-not-boot-after-moving-from-windows-server-2012-r2-to-windows-server-2019

 

Virtual Machines do not boot after moving from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2019

In the last couple of weeks, we have been hearing reports from customers who are encountering problems after migrating virtual machines directly from Windows Server 2012 R2 to Windows Server 2019. People are seeing error messages like the following:

 

Critical 03/01/2019 16:13:49 Hyper-V-Worker 18604 None

‘Test VM 1’ has encountered a fatal error but a memory dump could not be generated. Error 0x2. If the problem persists, contact Product Support for the guest operating system. (Virtual machine ID 90B45891-E0EB-4842-8070-F30FF25C663A)

 

Critical 03/01/2019 16:13:49 Hyper-V-Worker 18560 None

‘Test VM 1’ was reset because an unrecoverable error occurred on a virtual processor that caused a triple fault. If the problem persists, contact Product Support. (Virtual machine ID 90B45891-E0EB-4842-8070-F30FF25C663A)

 

We have been digging into these issues and have identified the root cause. In Windows Server 2019 we made several changes to the virtual machine firmware (a topic that I plan to blog about another day). In the process we unfortunately exposed a bug. The effect of the bug is that the firmware state on a version 5.0, Generation 2 virtual machine from Windows Server 2012 R2 cannot boot on Windows Server 2019.

 

Specifically – the bug is exposed by the IPv6 boot data that is stored in the firmware of a Generation 2 virtual machine. Note, this will not effect Generation 1 virtual machines.

 

We are actively working on a fix for this issue right now.

Cheers. Most of my servers are on 2012 R2, and I’m lazy enough to in-place them, so this would have been a fun surprise!